1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to providing a smart user interface and, more particularly, to providing smart data entry fields that can interpret information provided to software or online interfaces in a format that is not commonly understood by a computer system controlling the software or online interfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, information provided to software or online interfaces must be provided in a specific format that is recognized by the tools associated with the software or online interface. In particular, computer users are often forced to alter their natural way of thinking in order to provide information in a format that can be understood by the tool they are using. This phenomenon is easily observed when one provides a date, a credit card number, or a telephone number as part of a data entry process. For example, a date may be provided in a varied number of formats including “3-31-92” “03/31/1992,” and “03311992” which can then be interpreted as “March 31, 1992” or “31 Mar. 1992.” These varied formats can cause severe problems for conventional data entry applications, even those data entry applications that perform some level of data entry interpretation. For example, using the Apple Computer™ Address Book application, a birthday entry of “4767” yields an output of the current month and day with a year of “4767.”
Similar problems as those found with date information can also be observed with telephone numbers. For example, with Apple Computer's Address Book application telephone numbers are incorrectly assumed to be in the same locale as the user's system. In particular, an entry of “551112345678,” “+551112345678,” or the like is not reformatted according to a geographic location associated with the telephone number. In another example, the telephone number “408-555-1212” can be easily interpreted by a human as the same as “(404)555-1212” or “+1 (408) 555-1212.” Yet, computer users are required to provide such data in a specific format in a single data entry field, or the users are required to split the data amongst multiple discreet data entry fields. Moreover, other types of data such as credit card numbers, universal product code (UPC) numbers, international standard book numbers (ISBN), and social security numbers etc. are similarly affected since these numbers can be input and/or read as a single uninterrupted strings or as having delimiters (e.g. spaces, hyphens, etc.) between portions of the data entry string. To avoid such problems, programmers and designers have resorted to providing discreet data entry fields (e.g. month, day and year) in an effort to solve data sequencing issues (e.g. month-day-year vs. year-month-day) and imposing restrictions on what the value of each discreet data field must be.
In view of the forgoing, there is a need to provide a smart interface that shifts the burden of cognition from a user or user equivalent to the computer system controlling the software or user interfaces requiring data input.